Category Archives: travel

Las Vegas Top Ten Suites

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The Travel Channel is profiling the top ten suites in Las Vegas: 

10. Penthouse Suite, Las Vegas MGM Grand.  At about $3000 per night offers 19 phones, an elevator to the second floor, and a spectacular view. 

9. Palms Hotel, Las Vegas.   Adrienne Suite, the “Coolest Suite” in town according to the Travel Channel.  For $1500 per night you get a view of the mountains and city and a hotel address at one of the newest and coolest of the Las Vegas hotspots.

8. Sahara Hotel Casino.  Ambassador Suite.  This “Best Retro Suite offers a 1950’s style look and lots of old vegas glamor and history.

7. Turnberry Place.   This “best alternative” to hotel suites is a rich and famous living hotspot.  They showcase the 5.25 million dollar Suite, home to a wealthy client and will soon be home to many more Las Vegas luminaries and rich folks.  

6. Elvis and Priscilla Suite at the Viva Las Vegas Hotel.   This place does not look like my idea of a honeymoon place, but at $175 you even get neon lights and a Pink Cadillac bed.

5. Paris Las Vegas, Napoleon Suite.    Over 4300 Square feet of opulence, primarily used by high rollers who often come in via private jet.   Normally celebrities don’t stay here.

4. Mandalay Bay Four Seasons’ 180 Degree Suite is the ‘Best Escape” Suite.  $2500 per night.   A $10,000 hand carved bed is uniquie to the suite as is styling that is not typical Las Vegas.  The Four Seasons goal is to remove you from  Enjoy iced grapes at the pool where even the towels are chilled.

3.  Las Vegas Hilton.  Verona Suite.   15,000 Square feet of neo-renaissance opulence abounds in the Verona Suite that is generally for high rollers but unlike many of the other suites the Verona is on the market at $17,500  per night.    25 TV’s and big showers make this Las Vegas’ most expensive suite in terms of building costs according to the Las Vegas Hilton.

2. Venetian Hotel.    The Presidential Suite at the Venetian.  Sheldon Adelson is the Owner of the Venetian and says he likes to offer the Presidential to very high rollers – those who are gambling for 6-8 million per night and $150,000 per … .hand.  Usually playing baccarat.   Enjoy a Guggenheim Art Museum right in the hotel.

1. Bellagio Hotel.   Villa One Suite.  With entry through a private secret tunnel the Bellagio Villa One is a two bedroom, $6,000 per night masterpiece (unless you are a high roller in which case you’ll be paying nothing for the suite, but a lot more over time for the privileges).    Staff pampers guests in a private dining room, private gym, and more.  There are several villas at the Bellagio and each  has a secret garden.  The villas have 130 staff to help make the Bellagio’s Villa One the top suite in the Travel Channel’s roundup and the “most stylish suite” in Las Vegas.

The Bellagio, a 1.6 billion dollar hotel  is only one of 58 five diamond hotels in the world.

Las Vegas Blog

Las Vegas |  Las Vegas History |  Las Vegas Map

Talent Oregon Real Estate

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Wow, Talent is for sale these days as hundreds of houses go onto the market at prices that appear to be coming down, down and I predict down more now that the winter doldrums are approaching.    Under normal real estate circumstances people would be pulling houses off the market now, but the sub prime mortgage fiascos have put a lot of folks in the terrible position of “having” to sell their house or lose it.    I’m not clear when we’ll hit the bottom but I think this winter will be a great time to buy and a bad one to sell.

I’ve got two friends now working the Talent Oregon Real Estate market.   Dave doesn’t have a site up yet but Jack’s Talent Oregon Real Estate website is  a good resource for some local information and houses.  Jack also covers Ashland Oregon, Jacksonville Oregon, and Medford Oregon Real Estate. However best to email or call him directly for the latest information since the market is changing rapidly around here.

Hotel Booking Tip – day and date matter!

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Today’s travel tip is about booking hotel rooms, especially in big cities, especially Las Vegas Nevada. DAY and DATE MATTERS! The chart below is for rooms at the Palace Station Hotel and Casino. This moderately priced, off the Las Vegas strip Hotel gained notoriety today as the location of O.J. Simpson’s armed nabbery of some OJ Memoribilia getting sold by some guy at a room at the Palace Station.

But the key travel point is that if you have *any* flexibility in your travel plans you can save a bundle on the *very same* hotel room. In this example staying weekends at the Palace Station can cost you two or ever *three times* as much as staying mid-week at the very modest $39. New Year’s Eve in the same room is going to run you $189! I stayed at the Las Vegas Hilton two years ago at about $55 per night but then moved to a Fremont Street place for my final night, saving over $100 dollars over the Hilton’s weekend rate and getting to see the nittier and grittier side of Downtown Las Vegas.

Differences like this are greater in Las Vegas than in most places, but the midweek and flexibility rules often apply even in rural America. How to make sure you get the best rate? There’s no golden rule, but generally the best approach is to surf early and surf often and ask a lot of questions of the property itself. In the case of places like the Palace Station this could save you hundreds of dollars.

1 $99
2
$69 		3
$69 		4
$69 		5
$69 		6
$69 		7
$99 		8
$99
9
$49 		10
$49 		11
$49 		12
$49 		13
$49 		14
$69 		15
$69
16
$39 		17
$39 		18
$39 		19
$39 		20
$39 		21
$69 		22
$69
23
$69 		24
$69 		25
$69 		26
$69 		27
$69 		28
$99 		29
$149
30
$169 		31
$189

Hawaii Superferry

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Wow, the Hawaii Superferry is quite an amazing ship.  It’s a massive catamaran style vessel that will Ferry people, cars, and trucks between the Islands of Oahu, Maui, and Kauai (I think that’s the initial route though there are some big environmental protests going on and court actions.  Service is partially suspended pending environmental review).

National Geographic has a special about the building and testing of the ship, which attains a top speed of over 40 nautical miles per hour for the four hour trip from Hawaii to (Maui?).

Superferry Website for more information

Superferry at Wikipedia 

Big Ben, London, UK

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I was browsing some pix from my 2003 trip to England and France and thought this one was cool. We only spent a *single* day in London but made the best of our 11 hours there by hopping on and off tour busses and tearing around taking hundreds of pictures. Even though we spent about a week in Paris I think I remember more from the London visit partly because Paris was relaxed and London was intense and “goal oriented”. Can’t wait to go back and take more time to relax and visit the British Museum. I think my highlight of London was Westminster Abbey, that magnificent and fantastic bastion of modern English speaking culture and history.


Big Ben, London, UK

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck.

Here’s more about England Travel 

Canyon Creek Lakes, Trinity Alps, Northern California

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Above Lower Canyon Creek Lake looking South

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck.

We continued our labor day tradition of meeting our great friends in Weaverville, CA and then hiking in to the Trinity Alps Wilderness along the trail up to the Canyon Creek Lakes.    We camp about 4 miles in and then hike into the lakes the next day which is another 4 miles.    It’s a fantastic trip with the kind of scenery you find pretty much only in Northern California – sweeping mountain vistas, smooth granite outcrops and peaks, pristine mountain lakes, streams, and waterfalls.    Azure blues and deep greens and a star filled sky complete with the recent meteor shower.   It doesn’t get much better than that and the Trinity Alps are one of my favorite places in the whole world.

One really cool addition to the experience this year was looking at the hike through Google Earth, where by tilting the imagery you can really get a neat feel for the vistas along the actual hike.     We also found some photos of our first trip in to the Canyon Creek Lakes some 22 years ago. The scenery had not changed but … um … I think we have

Canyon Creek Contemplations

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This morning I woke up along Canyon Creek in Trinity Alps Wilderness of Northern California. This is a great hike we’ve done several times, and I’ll get the pix up tomorrow. We had some fun conversations at camp and around the fire as several meteors streaked across the magnificent night sky:

I think Chem trail conspiracy notions are silly, but they came up:
Chem Trails – nice description of the issues

Star and Moon motion
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970518.html

Mercury

Wow, and the $2000 EPA cleanup of broken flourescent bulb is really quite a story , and one very related to Mercury. In that story evil Fox news notes what appears to be a real environmental disconnect between advocacy for using compact flourescents and the dangers that will be caused by the ones that get broken and go to landfills. I remain confused about this. In fact I just broke one on the porch last week and had *no idea at all* about special cleanup needed, so I hope we all live.

Google Earth and Maps has some neat imagery of Canyon Creek Lakes area. If you don’t have Google earth it’s quite an amazing and free application to visualize cities and trails. Maps does not need download but Google Earth is a fanastic and free download.

Here’s the NYT article about life being a computer simulation

Here is Kurzweil’s AI site for updates on the singularity and conscious computing. It reads a bit sillier than it should based on his scientific and history “credentials” and the fact many AI folks think conscious computing is only 1-2 decades away.

Here’s my take on two neat AI projects

Chips and Human Neuron Salsa … and this related item just in from Israel IMHO the intersection of human brains and computing will initiate the most profound societal transformation in history.

And then again, maybe it’ll just let us watch TV in our heads, which would be pretty cool too.

Las Cruces New Mexico

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No, I’m not in Las Cruces NM right now, but I’m blogging about Las Cruces NM as part of the online NMOHWY experiment in white hat SEO for our travel related websites.

As part of that experiment, which I’ll explain later, I want to tell you more about Las Cruces and provide some links for better information than I can provide here but will eventually have at our New Mexico Travel website which is under major rennovation.

The area now occupied by the city of Las Cruces was part of Mexico until Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which included a conversion of the Mexican city of Doña Ana to the US city now called “Las Cruces”. The origin of the name is not clear but may refer to crosses in the area placed by Spanish priests.

Las Cruces has a population of about 78,000. Most air travel to and from the region is from the El Paso International Airport about an hour south of Las Cruces in Texas. Las Cruces is in the far south part of New Mexico.

And in what is almost certainly not a coincidence I have a strong personal connection to Las Cruces even though I’ve never been there.    My aunt, uncle, and cousin lived there on a ranch for many years.

The city of Las Cruces website is here
The Visitor Tourism website for Las Cruces is here

Some day the world’s best web page for Las Cruces New Mexico searches will be at the website here.

Oregon Travel

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I’m hoping to get my Oregon Travel blog going soon with tips and tricks about great vacation stuff here in Oregon. One of the things I *always* notice after travelling is how nice it is to come home to the great cultural and outdoor attractions within a few hours of my house here in lovely Talent Oregon

We’ve got some good basic detail about Oregon at the Online Highways Oregon Travel section but I’m hoping to do a more personalized version of this. Some will appear at the Online Highways travel blog but that travel blog will be focusing more on destinations around the globe and not digging into Oregon in great depth.

Oregon is home to several great regions. The state defines them like this but I’m going to be a little more precise at the Oregon Travel blog and try to focus in on more of a single city or destination basis.

I’ve already covered some Oregon Travel information in these Travel Highways and History posts but I have quite a bit of information, pictures, and adventures to share in the future. Oregon is one of the few places where you can enjoy skiing on peaks over 2 miles high, smashing surf and sea, and a round of golf all in the same day. (No, it would not be a relaxing day!)….

Downtowne Coffee Shop, Talent Oregon

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Here in lovely Talent, Oregon and in Southern Oregon in general we’ve got more than our share of great places for coffee but my favorite *by far* is the Downtowne Coffee Shop here in Talent, where the owners have created a cozy little coffee oasis right in the heart of our tiny town.     The coffee and specialty drinks are *always* first rate, food excellent, soups made right here, and the owners are almost always around.    WIFI is fast and reliable, outdoor patio, and really nice cozy indoor seating away from the separate room with the espresso machine.

If you are making your way up or down I-5 and need to check email or just grab a nice cup of java I’d recommend you drop in.  Downtowne Coffee Shop is only about a mile off the interstate and easy to find right in the heart of Talent.

(FYI this is an unsolicited review – I really love this place!)